J.J. Thomson

“ He and his brother James studied in Glasgow. From there he entered Cambridge, and was graduated as Second Wrangler in 1845. William Thomson, Sylvester, Maxwell, Clifford, and J. J. Thomson are a group of great men who were Second Wranglers at Cambridge. At the age of twenty-two W. Thomson was elected professor of natural philosophy in the University of Glasgow, a position which he has held ever since. For his brilliant mathematical and physical achievements he was knighted, and in 1892 was made Lord Kelvin. His researches on the theory of potential are epoch-making. ”

“ With a wild curse, Thomson sprang off the ledge. A fearfully quiet moment followed. Judah did not move. There came a crashing of underbrush, a sound of rolling rocks and gravel, a plash of water—silence.
A superb, masterful smile played over the ebon visage of the now solitary figure upon the mountainside. In his face shone a glitter of the untamable torrid ferocity of his tribe not pleasing to see. The first act in his bold and sagacious plans was successful; once free, it only remained for him to carry them out with the same inexorable energy. ”

“ This the feeling heart
Would tenderly suggest: but 'tis enough,
In this late age, adventurous to have touch'd,
Light on the numbers of the Samian sage.
High Heaven beside forbids the daring strain,
Whose wisest will has fix'd us in a state,
That must not yet to pure perfection rise.
But yonder breathing prospect bids the muse
Throw all her beauty forth, that daubing all
Will be to what I gaze; for who can paint
Like Nature? Can Imagination boast,
Amid his gay creation, hues like hers? ”

“ Thomson, a man who had, by large promises, and free censures of the common practice of physick, forced himself up into sudden reputation. Thomson declared his distemper to be a dropsy, and evacuated part of the water by tincture of jalap; but confessed that his belly did not subside. Thomson had many enemies, and Pope was persuaded to dismiss him.
While he was yet capable of amusement and conversation, as he was one day sitting in the air with lord Bolingbroke and lord Marchmont, he saw his favourite Martha Blount at the bottom of the terrace, and asked lord Bolingbroke to go and hand her up. ”

“ Like vivid blossoms glowing from afar,
Thick-swarm the brighter birds. For Nature's hand, ⁠735
That with a sportive vanity has deck'd
The plumy nations, there her gayest hues
Profusely pours. [5] But, if she bids them shine,
Array'd in all the beauteous beams of day,
Yet frugal still, she humbles them in song. ⁠740
Nor envy we the gaudy robes they lent
Proud Montezuma's realm, whose legions cast
A boundless radiance waving on the sun,
While Philomel is ours; while in our shades,
Thro' the soft silence of the listening night,⁠745
The sober-suited songstress trills her lay. ”

“ Amid the dawning clouds, and from their haunts 590
Calls up the tuneful nations. Every copse
Deep-tangled, and tree irregular, and bush
Bending with dewy moisture, o'er the heads
Of the coy quiristers that lodge within,
Are prodigal of harmony. The thrush 595
And wood-lark, o'er the kind contending throng
Superior heard, run thro' the sweetest length
Of notes; when listening Philomela deigns
To let them joy, and purposes, in thought
Elate, to make her night excel their day. 600
The black-bird whittles from the thorny brake ”

“ Fancy having to stand for an hour and a half bowing, and then to sit with one's cocked hat on, receiving addresses.' In person Thomson was small, slight, elegant, fragile-looking, with a notably handsome face. He was one of those clever, agreeable, plausible, managing little men who seem always to get their own way. They are very adroit and not too scrupulous about the means they use to attain their ends. ”

“ ON THOMSON AND COWPER Thomson, the kind-hearted Thomson, was the most indolent of mortals and of poets. But he was also one of the best both of mortals and of poets. Dr. Johnson makes it his praise that he wrote ‘no line which dying he would wish to blot.’ Perhaps a better proof of his honest simplicity, and inoffensive goodness of disposition, would be that he wrote no line which any other person living would wish that he should blot. ”

“ Such are seldom very dose in their discourse when they meet and junket together, and Thomson, then a boy, was so much pleased with their jovial manner of life, eating well and drinking hard, that he had ever a bias that way, even when he was otherways employed, till he was fifteen years old, leading such an idle and debauched life that, as he himself expressed it, he had never heard of or read a Bible or other good book throughout all that space. ”

“ To taste the lucid coolness of the flood.
Ah then! not Paris on the piny top
Of Ida panted stronger, when aside ⁠1300
The rival-goddesses the veil divine
Cast unconfin'd, and gave him all their charms,
Than, Damon, thou; as from the snowy leg,
And slender foot, th' inverted silk she drew;
As the soft touch dissolv'd the virgin zone;⁠1305
And, thro' the parting robe, th' alternate breast,
With youth wild-throbbing, on thy lawless gaze
In full luxuriance rose. But, desperate youth,
How durst thou risque the soul-distracting view ”

“ Objects so vast and magnificent as planets rolling with even pace through their orbits, comets rushing along their devious track, light springing from its unexhausted source, mighty rivers formed in their subterranean beds, do not require, or even admit, a heightening from the fancy. The most faithful pencil here produces the noblest pictures; and Thomson, by strictly adhering to the character of the poet of Nature, has treated all these topics with a true sublimity, which a writer of less knowledge and accuracy could never have attained. ”

“ That pois'd, impels, and rules the steady Whole.
⁠When now no more th' alternate Twins are fir'd,
And Cancer reddens with the solar blaze,
Short is the doubtful empire of the night:⁠45
And soon, observant of approaching day,
The meek-ey'd Morn appears, mother of dews,
At first faint-gleaming in the dappled east:
Till far o'er ether spreads the widening glow;
And, from before the lustre of her face,⁠50
White break the clouds away. With quicken'd step,
Brown Night retires: Young Day pours in apace,
And opens all the lawny prospect wide. ”

“ Thomson was extremely beloved by his acquaintance. He was of an open generous disposition; and was sometimes tempted to an excessive indulgence of the social pleasures: A failing too frequently inseparable from men of genius. His exterior appearance was not very engaging, but he grew more and more agreeable, as he entered into conversation: He had a grateful heart, ready to acknowledge every favour he received, and he never forgot his old benefactors, notwithstanding a long absence, new acquaintance, and additional eminence ”

“ By life's sore burthens all-too-much oppressed,
With visions of tranquillity supreme;
So, self-sufficing, grand and bland and blest,
He dwelt enthroned, and whoso gazed did seem
Endowed with death-calm life in long unwistful dream.
IV.
While others fumed and schemed and toiled in vain
To mould the world according to their mood,
He did by might of perfect faith refrain
From any part in such disturbance rude.
The world, he said, indeed is very good,
Its Maker surely wiser far than we ”

“ Nor deeper verdure dyes the robe of Spring,
When first she gives it to the southern gale,
Than the green Emerald shows. But, all combin'd,⁠155
Thick thro' the whitening Opal play thy beams;
Or, flying several from its surface, form
A trembling variance of revolving hues,
As the site varies in the gazer's hand.
⁠The very dead creation, from thy touch, ⁠160
Assumes a mimic life. By thee refin'd,
In brighter mazes the relucent stream
Plays o'er the mead. The precipice abrupt,
Projecting horror on the blackened flood,
Softens at thy return. ”

“ Though he possess sweet babes and loving wife, A home of peace by loyal friendships cheered, And love them more than death or happy life, They shall avail not; he must dree his weird; 25 Renounce all blessings for that imprecation, Steal forth and haunt that builded desolation, Of woe and terrors and thick darkness reared. VI I sat forlornly by the river-side, And watched the bridge-lamps glow like golden stars Above the blackness of the swelling tide, Down which they struck rough gold in ruddier bars ”

“ The Beau made a thousand apologies, hummed, hawed, and drew a card from his pocket. It was the rival's invitation, and was indignantly denounced. 'Dear me, how very unfortunate,' said the Beau, 'but you know Johnson and Thompson—I mean Thompson and Johnson are so very much alike. Mrs. Johnson-Thompson, I wish you a very good evening.'
Perhaps there is no vulgarity greater than that of rallying people on their surnames, but our exquisite gentleman had not wit enough to invent one superior to such a puerile amusement. ”

“ He thinks in a peculiar train, and he thinks always as a man of genius; he looks round on Nature and on Life with the eye which Nature bestows only on a poet; the eye that distinguishes, in every thing presented to its view, whatever there is on which imagination can delight to be detained, and with a mind that at once comprehends the vast, and attends to the minute. The reader of the "Seasons" wonders that he never saw before what Thomson shews him, and that he never yet has felt what Thomson impresses. ”

“ Henceforth his residence at St. Paul's brought him still more continually into the world, which he delighted by his 'wise wit.' Most London dinners, he declared, evaporated in whispers to one's next neighbours. He never, however, spoke to his neighbour, but 'fired' across the table. One day, however, he broke his rule, on hearing a lady, who sat next him, say in a sweet low voice, 'No gravy, sir.'—'Madam!' he cried, 'I have all my life been looking for a person who disliked gravy, let us swear immortal friendship.' She looked astonished, but took the oath, and kept it. ”

“ By antient learning to th' enlightened love ⁠1525
Of antient freedom warm'd. Fair thy renown
In awful Sages and in noble Bards;
Soon as the light of dawning Science spread
Her orient ray, and wak'd the Muses' song.
Thine is a Bacon, hapless in his choice, ⁠1530
Unfit to stand the civil storm of state,
And thro' the smooth barbarity of courts,
With firm but pliant virtue, forward still
To urge his course. Him for the studious shade
Kind Nature form'd, deep, comprehensive, clear, ⁠1535
Exact, and elegant; in one rich soul,
Plato, the Stagyrite, and Tully join'd. ”

“ Even persons somewhat hard of hearing, are not deaf to her waterfalls. In the sublime invocation to Winter, which we have quoted—we hear Thomson recording his own worship of nature in his boyish days, when he roamed among the hills of his father's parish, far away from the manse. In those strange and stormy delights did not thousands of thousands of the Scottish boyhood familiarly live among the mists and snows? Of all that number he alone had the genius to "here eternise on earth" his joy—but many millions have had souls to join religiously in the hymns he chanted. ”

“ Bradlaugh, the man of action and enterprise, ever striving for practical ends, yet loving a contest, whether physical or mental, as much for its own sake as for any advantage it might bring him: of firm and inflexible determination, who, when he has once resolved to attain an object, never rests until that object is achieved. Thomson, the student, the idealist and poet, or say the dreamer, who shrank with almost morbid dislike from the noise and tumult of publicity, and who, like Hamlet, was fitted rather for contemplation than for action. ”

“ No player among the half-backs of the old school was so much thought of in Association football as Thomson. Once seen and met by an opponent, he could never be forgotten. Tall and stern in appearance, he carried every pound of his heavy weight with the greatest ease, and, what was of more consequence to his club in a hard battle, used it well. He tackled with consummate skill, and had remarkable confidence in himself. For the first three years of his membership no player ever turned out more regularly to practice, and, for a stout man, none could show an opponent a cleaner pair of heels. ”

“ Yet it is difficult to believe that he was not the better for that training in refinement of style which he partly owed to Pope, who almost unquestionably contributed 'some passages to The Seasons. And, except in The Castle of Indolence, there is much that is conventional, much that is even vicious or vulgar in taste when Thomson's muse deals with that human life which must be the background of descriptive as of all other poetry; for example, his bumpkin who chases the rainbow is as unreal a being as Akenside's more sentimental rustic who has " the form of beauty smiling at his heart." ”

“ Had he followed those practices of healthy activity so finely described in his poem, how much longer and more useful might his life have been! Yet it must be a fact unquestionable, that Thomson, as a boy, rose early, saw both sunrises and all the glories of nature, plunged into the summer flood, and braved the severity of winter. No man could so vividly or so accurately describe what he had not experienced, and they who know best the country know how exact is his knowledge of it. ”